President Trump is going after former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in his hometown.
Trump will hold a rally next month in Mobile, Ala., to campaign for Tommy Tuberville, Sessions’s opponent in a Senate GOP runoff election, CNN reported Monday.
The rally is expected to be held just days ahead of the July 14 runoff election for the seat formerly held by Sessions, CNN reported, citing two sources familiar with the plan. The runoff election was postponed in March due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Trump endorsed Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach, in March, after remaining neutral in the race leading up to the primary. Tuberville and Sessions emerged as the top two vote-getters in an election where no candidate received 50 percent of the vote during the primary, pushing them into a runoff.
Sessions tweeted Monday that Trump’s “time would be far better spent in swing states” rather than Alabama, which the president is expected to win in November.
“The people of Alabama will not be told who to vote for by anyone in Washington. As recent experience demonstrates, in Alabama we make our own decisions on who will represent us in the US Senate. It’s always a good day when the President of the United States visits Alabama,” Sessions tweeted.
“That said, Alabama will vote solidly for @realDonaldTrump this fall, so his time would be far better spent in swing states he must win to be reelected,” he added.
Sessions vacated the Senate seat in 2017 when he joined the Cabinet as Trump’s first attorney general.
Trump has repeatedly excoriated Sessions after he, as attorney general, recused himself from overseeing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump has mocked Sessions’s accent and has called him a “total disaster” and an “embarrassment to the great state of Alabama.”
The candidate who emerges victorious in the July 14 runoff will face Sen. Doug Jones (D) in November. Jones won the seat in a special election to replace Sessions, defeating former Judge Roy Moore.
Jones became the first Democrat in Alabama elected to the U.S. Senate in 25 years, but he faces a tough battle for reelection. The Cook Political Report rates the race as leaning Republican.